Seven Rules for a Perfect Marriage

Jessica

Jack and I have very different attitudes to both packing and unpacking. He’ll bring about three garments on holiday and then leave them in the suitcase for the entire time, even if we’re away for a fortnight. I’ll bring forty-five outfits and unpack every single item I’ve brought as if I’m moving house, even if we’re just away for the weekend. Which is why I’m only halfway through folding pairs of tights while he’s already found a shelf of books left by previous guests and ploughed into a biography of some dead American politician. He seems completely calm about what we’re about to do, which is an enviable position because I feel like I’m about to throw up.

I spent a lot of time with Suze and our publishers planning this thing, finding the perfect balance of activities to really showcase how the rules can help a relationship. But I planned it for other people, I didn’t think I would be joining in too. I didn’t think my marriage needed help. But now I’m worried that I’m going to be exposed as a complete fraud for giving relationship advice when Jack and I are so far from perfect. I don’t know how we’d survive if rumours found their way on to the forums.

I only found out about the websites a couple of years ago. Forums where people can post anonymously about any social media account as long as it has more than 10,000 followers. There was some article in the Sunday supplements. It talked about the women who have seemingly normal, happy lives, but who log on at night after the kids are in bed to discuss a stranger’s weight gain, alleged surgery or any one of a variety of perceived failings. Obviously, the first thing I did was type our names in, my gut twisting as I waited to see what people had said.

So far we’ve got off shockingly lightly. Occasionally I’ve found the website useful. When they started talking about my Botox, claiming I was pretending I’d had nothing done, I waited a week or two and then threw in a mention of it, talking about how important it is to be candid about any ‘help’ you have, so that you don’t perpetuate unrealistic standards. People seemed to like that. There are plenty of people who don’t like us, obviously. A handful who say that I seem cold or that we don’t deserve our big house, neither of which worry me especially. There were a couple of comments recently about me looking too thin, which I secretly quite liked. But most importantly, no one on there seems to have clocked that for the better part of a year, Jack and I can’t go forty-eight hours without one of us winding the other one up.

Suze pushes the bedroom door open without knocking. ‘You know you didn’t need to take the smallest bedroom, right?’ she says as I stand in front of the mirror debating between a white jumper and a striped one, agonising over which one will make the best first impression. ‘We had you down as being in the main suite.’

‘We thought Ken and Sue should have it. They’re the eldest couple.’

‘Sweet.’ I cannot tell from the look on her face if she thinks I’m lovely or a moron. ‘Can I steal you and Jack for pictures?’

Clay told us right at the start of all this that the people who do well are the people who behave well. ‘Being an influencer is like being a royal,’ he told us, over an expensive lunch. ‘Put up and shut up if you want to survive.’ So rather than saying that we’re desperately trying to get on an even keel, I smile. ‘Of course.’

‘Where is he?’

I look around, unsure. The bed is rumpled from where I threw my very heavy suitcase on it. She follows my gaze and sees where I’m looking.

‘You two!’ she laughs. ‘God, I wish Chris and I were still at it like rabbits.’

I could correct her. But I don’t and we eventually find Jack in the kitchen, wrestling with a very complicated coffee machine. Suze manipulates our limbs while we stand in front of a huge window, Jack looking into the camera, my chin tilted upwards, looking adoringly at him. Suze has just got the shot when we hear the crunch of gravel on the drive and all three of us freeze for a moment.

‘Show time!’ says Suze brightly. She takes out a phone the size of a paperback and bolts for the door, presumably to capture everyone arriving.

‘Ready?’ Jack asks me.

‘Yep.’

‘I don’t want to be a dick,’ he says, which means he’s going to say something dickish. ‘But I don’t think this is going to be easy. Airing our dirty laundry in public, admitting that we’re not perfect. But if we’re doing it, we’ve got to really do it.’

‘I know that,’ I say, indignant. ‘I didn’t agree to join in lightly. I knew what it meant, I get that it’s a big deal.’

‘Okay,’ he says. ‘Because I really do want to make things better.’ He leans down and touches his forehead to mine.

‘Me too,’ I say earnestly. ‘Me too.’

I asked for a bus to collect everyone from the station, so that they’d have a chance to chat and meet each other. I’m utterly vindicated when they pour off the bus and into the house already chatting and laughing. We need them to like each other at least a little bit because they’re going to have to spend the next forty-eight hours sharing their most personal, private secrets with each other. And, I remember with a twist in my solar plexus, so am I.

‘I’m Verity and this is Noah,’ the first woman introduces herself, shaking my hand then Jack’s.

‘Welcome.’ I smile. ‘Go straight through, and make yourself at home. They’ve been married for ten years,’ I whisper to Jack.

‘Ten years? But they look so young?’

‘They are so young. They got married at eighteen.’

‘Jesus. Why?’

‘Jesus.’

‘That’s what I said.’

‘No, as in, they got married because they were super Christian.’

‘Oh. Well, that explains the marital problems. Three people in their marriage and all that.’

I laugh, and then try not to, because I don’t want anyone to think that we’re standing in the hallway being judgemental and superior. Which I suppose we are a little bit, not that we have any right to be.

‘Well, there’s actually five of them, because they’ve got three kids under three. We got the publishers to front up some money to get them childcare while they’re here, so believe it or not, this is probably like a holiday for them.’

I smile at Sue and Ken, who are picking their way across the drive. They’re the oldest couple of the weekend. Ken is bald and serious, Sue tanned and smiley. He’s carrying her suitcase which is very sweet. I watch Jack, knowing he’s wondering whether he should offer to take the suitcase from him or whether that’ll seem ageist and patronising.

‘What’s their deal?’ he asks after he’s said hello and waved them through into the house.

‘Ken retired a few months ago and they’re struggling to know how to adjust to being at home together all the time. Sue had raised their three kids and stayed home while Ken worked on the trains so was away a lot. It sounds like it’s been a big change.’

Chloe and Ben are next. Jack shakes both their hands and Chloe goes in for a hug. Chloe filled out their application. She explained that her family had issues with her marrying a black guy, so she and Ben cut the parents off. But then they had kids and she struggled and started taking them to see her mum and dad without telling Ben. Eventually one of the kids spilled the beans and it put a massive wedge in their marriage. It seems like Chloe applied to come here as a sort of mea culpa to Ben.

Last off the bus are Grant and Stuart. ‘Grant is twenty years older than Stuart, and they apparently met when Stuart was his PA and Grant was still married to a woman. Grant’s children are grown-up but won’t meet Stuart, and it’s all more complicated because Stuart wants to have kids and Grant thinks he’s too old. Plus there’s a bit of a mismatch about their sex drives.’ I convey this to Jack under my breath as they approach the house.

‘Are you going to be okay if they talk about wanting to start a family?’ Jack asks me in a hushed tone as we turn to follow everyone into the house.

‘What do you mean?’ I play dumb.

‘Their problems ... might be a bit close to home?’

‘I’ve never shagged my PA.’ I smile. It’s a defensive smile that Jack can probably see through but I can’t get upset and fall apart before the weekend has even begun.

Jack

At three minutes to seven, I’m standing in the kitchen, trying to work out what I should be doing while everyone else is unpacking and freshening up before the welcome drinks. There’s a load of champagne in the fridge, designed to be carefully distributed so that no one is plastered but the awkwardness of what we’re about to do is dulled slightly. I start very slowly unwrapping the top of a bottle for something to do with my hands. I freeze as I hear footsteps behind me, and look up. It’s a very pretty dark-haired woman/girl with heavy eyeliner. She looks like a teenager who’s been dragged to the country for a holiday with her parents. Which one was she? Chloe? Verity? I should remember her name, given how recently I was introduced to her.

‘Thank fuck for that,’ she says. ‘I thought this might be the kind of place that doesn’t provide alcohol. I’m Verity.’

‘I’m Jack,’ I say, returning the favour of repeating my name. ‘Excited for the retreat?’

‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘More so now I know it’s not going to be dry.’

I pop the bottle, as quietly as I can. ‘A no-alcohol policy was suggested by the people who organised this with us,’ I say, pouring the champagne into a glass and handing it to her. ‘But we insisted.’

She takes a sip. ‘I can’t think of anyone who needs a drink more than a group of unhappily married people trying to save their relationships.’

‘The official party line is that no one is unhappy, and that we’re all trying to “reinvigorate” our relationships,’ I say, feeling Jessica would be proud of me.

She smiles, showing a little gap between her two front teeth. ‘Sure.’ Then, lifting the glass, ‘Cheers.’

There’s a silence so abject that I can hear the humming of the fridge. This is why I liked my old job. I’m good behind the scenes. I can set things up so other people can flourish, or more often, so that they can skewer a tricky politician. But standing in the middle of the room isn’t for me. I think sometimes it might read like I’m not trying, like I think I’m too good for it all, but it’s literally the opposite. It’s been worse since things really started to take off with the account. More parties, more events, more dinners, but most of all, more pressure. If I embarrassed myself at the pub five years ago, then the only person who suffered was me. Now if I cock it up badly enough, apparently I could tank Jessica’s livelihood too. Sometimes when we leave an event, Jessica will give me a review in the car on the way home. It started with her thanking me for going to bad parties with weak drinks so that we could ‘network’ and morphed into her explaining how I could make better small talk next time. I know she’s trying to help, to make me more comfortable, and it comes from a good place. But sometimes it feels like we leave a party and I wait for her to start listing all the ways I’ve failed.

I’m quite relieved when Ken and Sue come down and fill the room with noise, chatting about how much they like their bedroom. Verity turns towards them and I step back just a little, smiling and nodding in a way I hope is acceptable.

Eventually everyone assembles, and it feels like an awkward school disco; the crowd has separated into two tribes, lining opposite walls. What I really want to do is walk over to Jess, put my arm around her and do the small talk together. I feel more confident at these things with her by my side, but I know we’re supposed to be mingling. I can see that she’s busy chatting to Sue, maybe because Sue’s kids are all grown-up so Jess won’t have to listen to what it’s like having little ones. A couple of the blokes next to me have already formed a little cabal, predictably talking about football, and I feel on the outs, like the kid at school trying to pretend I’m interested in the same things to fit in better. There’s a sort of frantic quality to the way that they keep repeating themselves, repeating sports clichés. They’re nervous, and I get it. If you’ve spent your entire life keeping schtum about your feelings, it’s quite the challenge to suddenly go away for a weekend and be expected to expose your innermost thoughts. A bit like being expected to take off all your clothes and bend over, really. Unlike the rest of them, I suppose I could probably bow out at this point. But even entertaining the idea feels wrong. I think, despite the nerves, it might actually be preferable to admit fallibility and join in, rather than just leading and acting like a pair of smug twats who know the answer to everything.

From across the room, I hear Jessica clinking a knife against her glass.

‘Hi everyone,’ she says. ‘I’m Jessica, this is Jack,’ as if they don’t already know who she is. She’s the whole reason they’re here. ‘Thank you so much for giving up your time to be here with us, for what we hope is going to be a really exciting, empowering weekend. We’ve got a jam-packed schedule of games, events and activities guiding you through each of our Seven Rules, which – as you all hopefully know – we believe can strengthen any relationship.’

She pauses to take a breath, obviously nervous. She’s better in front of a bigger crowd, I’ve noticed. With a group this size, you can really feel everybody in the room. She sips her drink and then carries on, a bit slower now.

‘Some of you will be here because you want to recommit to each other, some of you will be here because you’re having some significant struggles in your marriage. Having struggles in your marriage is normal – we all know that. But being unhappy for an extended period of time is not. We want you to leave at the end of the weekend with tools you can use for the rest of your lives. We’re going to ask for a lot of vulnerability and honesty from you all, and that’s probably going to feel quite weird to start with.’ People laugh lightly. ‘But we promise you, it’ll be worth it. Sometimes it’s easy to fall into patterns in a marriage, to focus on the bad and forget the qualities that you love most about your partner and what attracted you to them in the first place.’

She pauses, fiddling with her bracelet and tucking her hair behind her ear. When she looks up she meets my eye, and I’m grateful that she’s being honest although it hurts that I know she’s speaking from experience. There are a few uncomfortable looks and murmurs of agreement, so it’s clear that everyone can relate. ‘Jack? Anything to add?’

I absolutely have to say something. I pick a spot at the back of the room and focus my eyes there, and then decide that it’s probably best just to be honest. ‘If any of you are feeling a bit apprehensive about this, join the club. I’m not into sharing my feelings by nature, especially not with a room full of strangers.’ I pause, worried that was rude. ‘Sorry. But you know. You are strangers at the moment.’ They laugh, much to my relief. ‘But yeah, Jessica and I agreed that if we were going to ask you to take part in this with your whole hearts, we should do the same. So we’ll be doing all the activities with you. And if I can manage to nail this “talking about your feelings” stuff, then I promise literally anyone can.’

They laugh again, and the ‘they’ includes Jessica, which makes this a dramatic improvement on last time I did public speaking in front of her.

‘So we thought we’d start things off nice and easy,’ Jess says, taking back the reins, much to my relief. ‘I know it’s been a long day of travel so tonight we’re just going to do a quick icebreaker where we go around and introduce ourselves and our other half, using rule two: always be your partner’s greatest cheerleader. We’ll give you a couple of minutes and then when you’re ready, you just introduce yourself and tell us something amazing about your partner.’

The little gathered crowd eases back as each couple turns inward, talking in low voices.

‘Can I borrow you both?’ Suze motions to me and Jess.

We follow her out into the corridor and Suze hands Jess an iPad.

‘Now you’re joining in for the weekend, they need you to sign a waiver to say that you won’t sue if you fall off anything high and that you’re not pregnant, Jessica. I don’t think they need you to say that part, Jack.’ She smiles at her own joke.

For fuck’s sake. Did she really need to ask? It’s not even been a fortnight since Clay and the gang called us into the office to demand our fertility plans and now Suze has got us confirming our barrenness on a sodding form? I can see Jessica chewing at the side of her finger, like she always does when she wants to run away.

‘Oh, yes. Of course. Great. Yep, I can do that, I can absolutely do that,’ she burbles. ‘Do you have a pen?’

My cheeks start burning for her.

Suze gives her a look. ‘It’s an iPad, Jessica.’

‘So it is!’ she agrees. She ticks the ‘not pregnant’ box and then scrawls her signature in the box. I take it and do my own form.

‘Thanks. We should go rejoin everyone,’ I say cheerfully, eager to have this exchange over with as quickly as possible.

‘You know it took me and David three years to have the twins,’ she tells Jessica, as we go back into the room. I stop. Please don’t start telling her about how it worked out for you, I pray. I don’t care that it worked out for you. I don’t care about it working out for anyone else on the whole entire planet until it works out for us.

‘That must have been really hard,’ I interrupt with a tight smile. And then I go back into the room, where everyone is laughing at whatever Grant has just said about Stuart. Verity takes longer to think about her answer than she should need to, given that she’s had the last five minutes to think of something. Eventually, without even looking at Noah, she says, ‘The children adore Noah, and he’s a very involved father.’

Not exactly being his greatest cheerleader, but it’s only the first night. Noah smiles out at the group as if she’s declared him the greatest man alive. In turn he says, ‘Verity is a wonderful mother. She’s sacrificed everything for the children. Her entire life is about them.’

I wince. The way Noah says it, I can really imagine just how much sacrifice she’s made, and I’m not convinced we should be celebrating it.

‘Your turn,’ Verity says, smiling at Jessica. ‘What does the world’s most perfect couple like best about each other?’

‘We’re really not perfect.’ Jess pauses for a moment. ‘But I love the way that Jack is so genuinely curious about the world, about people – about everything, really. He constantly tells me things I don’t know, it’s like a real education.’

I look at the floor because I’m not sure where else to look. Pathetically, I can feel my neck getting red with pride. I can’t remember the last time Jessica said something about me which wasn’t a criticism. But then, when was the last time I said something kind about her? We’re rustier at this than I had realised.

‘This is going to sound a bit obvious,’ I say, moving my gaze to the bottom of my champagne glass. I’d really like to brush this off with a joke. But that’s not what we’re doing here. ‘But sometimes I forget that Jess needs a cheerleader, because she’s got literally a million of them online. But that’s me getting complacent about what a force of nature she is. We’re all standing here because of her. She built this. She’s a powerhouse like no one else I’ve ever known.’

My stomach twists as I force myself to look up, to see whether I’ve said the wrong thing again, if I wasn’t supposed to suggest that the bulk of the Seven Rules work was done by her. But she’s smiling her real smile, the one she trained herself not to do because her stepmother once said it made her look squinty.

‘Well, what a great place to end the introductions,’ says Suze. ‘Shall we go through to dinner?’

The First Holiday

Jack

‘Cabin crew, prepare for landing,’ the pilot’s voice crackles over the speaker.

‘Ready to land?’ I ask Jessica, who is gazing out of the window taking photos of the wing of the plane on her new pink phone.

‘Can’t wait.’ She smiles. She’s got heart-shaped sunglasses perched on her head and her skin is a deep terracotta from the tan I helped her apply last night. I find it a bit confusing that she can’t go on holiday without already looking like she’s been on holiday, but given that Jessica is miles out of my league and constantly looks incredible, I don’t feel the need to share this thought.

‘I know. An entire week of wine, sun, sleeping and shagging.’

‘I thought you’d be looking forward to the museums and all that lame shit,’ she laughs.

‘Actually, the thing I’m most looking forward to is watching you speak Spanish.’ I lean in for a kiss. ‘Bonita.’

She told me once, when we were first emailing back and forth, that she’s too self-conscious to use her Spanish in England, that she only speaks it when she’s in Spain. This week, I’m finally going to get to see the woman I fancy so much I might explode do the sexiest thing that a woman can do and speak another language fluently.

She starts putting everything back into her handbag, haphazardly stuffing a paperback in, pages splayed open. ‘In like, five hours, we’re going to be sitting on our own terrace drinking wine and watching the sun go down,’ she says.

We started planning this holiday, like a pair of total clichés, the day we got home from our families’ for Christmas. We’d both had miserable times, obviously, because that’s the point of family at Christmas. The damp flat where she lived was freezing, she’d left a load of wet laundry in the machine by accident and it had grown a forest of mould. I’d dropped my phone between the train platform and the train on the way to her place. ‘We need something to look forward to,’ she’d announced, with complete certainty. ‘Let’s book a trip.’

It turned out, in the process of organising our first grown-up holiday, that Jessica and I had different ideas of what a holiday looks like. For me it was always a long car journey, usually north of Cambridge, often to the Lake District. I’d be between my taller brothers, agonisingly bored, while we listened to a tape of Greek myths and legends. We’d arrive late and I’d get out with cramping legs, covered in crumbs from the car picnic. And then we’d spend the following days tramping through the rain to houses where famous politicians or poets had once lived. I’d watch my parents carefully reading little plaques next to paintings, and in the evenings they’d read their books on the floral sofas of whatever cottage they’d rented, while I wondered what it would be like to go to Center Parcs.

Jessica’s parents were from a more glam school of travel. She describes flights to upmarket package holidays where smiling twenty-somethings who had trained as dancers would meet them at the airport and usher them on to an air-conditioned coach and drive them to a compound with a view of the sea where the food was reassuringly not foreign. She’d be packed off to kids’ club every morning while her parents slow-roasted themselves on the beach. She mentioned once that she’d longed to be allowed to join them, that she had spent her childhood wondering how old she’d have to be before she was allowed to lie next to them in silence, feeling like a family.

So, given that we’d both had fairly depressing experiences of holidays growing up, we decided to do something different. Jessica found a little apartment on some new website where you can rent people’s houses, and I rented us a car. And for the five months between booking the trip to Spain and getting on the flight, it became a sort of prayer, like a meditation. When we were cold or grumpy or had bad days, we’d talk about sitting outside the little villa drinking Fanta Lemon and eating crisps, swimming, rubbing sun cream into each other’s skin. She talked about linen sundresses and buying really big tomatoes at the market; I talked about finally getting time to work on my novel, plotting away in a Moleskine notebook.

We arrive at Madrid-Barajas to discover that they’re having a heatwave. We get off the plane, descend the metal steps and then wait for the better part of an hour, on the tarmac, in the bus which doesn’t have air conditioning.

‘Apparently this is the worst airport in Europe,’ Jessica says cheerfully, looking up from her phone with a smile. ‘One to tick off the bucket list.’

‘A superlative is a superlative,’ I say, kissing her. We’re far too in love to be bothered. It was cold at home, it’s hot here. ‘Anyway,’ I tell her, ‘this way when we get through passport control, our bags will be waiting for us.’

Obviously this tempted fate, because we make our way through the longest, slowest queue imaginable and arrive at baggage reclaim to watch a handful of suitcases circling around like the last dishes at a YO! Sushi. We sit for another ten minutes before it becomes clear that our suitcases have not made it to Spain.

‘Okay,’ I say. ‘Tell you what. I’ll go and get the hire car, and you go fill out a lost luggage complaint.’

Jessica looks blank. ‘Why me?’

‘I don’t think the car hire place will need much Spanish, but you’re going to have to convince them to give you some money upfront to get new clothes, and give them the forwarding address for the house and stuff.’ She looks blank again, which is starting to confuse me. ‘You’re the only one who speaks Spanish?’

A look of realisation crosses her face. ‘Oh. Yes. Of course. Because I speak Spanish.’

I head off to the car queue, pick up the keys and locate the Fiat 500 we’re driving for the week, which has been parked in direct sunlight and therefore has door handles so hot that I can barely open it. I sit inside, running the air con for a bit like some kind of billionaire, and thinking how great it’s going to be when Jess gets here and I’ve made it all nice and cool for her.

Half an hour later, she’s still not back. I call her, and there’s no answer. So I lock the car, walk back to the terminal and arrive, sweating, to find Jessica standing in front of the lost luggage desk, her face streaked with tears, doing a complicated mime.

‘Los baggos,’ she says, very slowly. ‘Mi baggage, est non ici.’

‘Jess?’ I say from behind her. She jumps, then whirls around to look at me.

‘I thought you were getting the car?’ she says, her voice high.

‘I got it. I came to see if you needed some help.’

‘I don’t need help. I’m FINE,’ she says, in a voice which sounds very not fine.

‘Okay,’ I say. ‘You carry on.’

She’s bright red under the tan.

‘Have you told him our flight number? I’ve got it written down here if you want?’

‘Can you just go and stand over there? On the other side of the baggage reclaim?’ she asks.

‘Why?’

‘Because I’m asking you to,’ she says, through gritted teeth.

The man comes back to the counter and says something in very fast Spanish.

‘Mi baggos es dans Londres,’ Jessica says slowly. ‘Los siento, mi baggos esta en Londres porque?’

I’m trying very, very hard not to laugh.

‘Me encanta los baggos, por favore,’ she tries again.

I give in. Then the lost baggage man starts laughing too.

‘That’s just so many languages,’ I manage to say eventually.

She storms away from the counter, and I scoop up her tote bag and water bottle and run after her.

‘I shouldn’t have laughed,’ I say, still laughing. ‘I’m sorry!’ She’s teetering between annoyed and amused, her bottom lip wobbling and her eyes creasing with giggles.

‘Jack, I have to tell you something.’

‘What?’

‘I don’t actually speak Spanish.’

‘What?’ I adopt a tone of shock. ‘This is completely new information, I had no idea.’

She gives in to the laughter and then gently kicks me in the shin with her white Conversed foot. ‘I don’t even know why I lied. I barely even remember doing it. We were just like, newly sleeping together, and you said how sexy you found it when women could speak other languages, and I was like, fuck it, I’m never going abroad with this guy, I’ll tell him I’m an eighth Spanish.’

‘Hang on, you’re not actually an eighth Spanish? You said you called your dad’s mum your “abuela”?!’

‘I didn’t say that!’

‘You bloody did!’

She shakes her head mournfully. ‘She was from Hounslow.’

I lose it. I laugh so hard that I’m rasping for breath. Eventually, I pull myself together. ‘Come on,’ I say. ‘Let’s go and talk to him.’

The baggage man is coming to the end of his shift. He swaps with a colleague who speaks English and we’re given an envelope of euros for compensation, and reassurance that our suitcases will arrive before we go back to London. We drive into the old town and park on a shaded avenue which smells like trees. Jessica takes her half of the money, which should have been enough for several outfits, and buys one coral-coloured bikini made of three scraps of fabric, which costs so much I wince at the label. Then she picks out a strappy linen sundress at a similarly mad cost, and beams all the way home clutching her bounty.

‘What are you going to wear when they’re in the wash?’ I ask. I had bought a variety of sensibly priced garments.

‘I’ll be naked.’ She beams.

‘Fine by me.’

We drive on for a little while longer, the winding roads propelling us towards our destination. ‘I think we should have an amnesty,’ I say, after a little while. ‘A truth amnesty.’

‘Does this mean you’ve been keeping something from me?’

‘I didn’t pass my driving test the second time,’ I tell her.

‘Which time was it?’

‘Fifth,’ I say. ‘And I failed my theory twice.’

She snorts with laughter. ‘Okay.’

‘How about you? Any other secretos ?’

‘Too soon!’ she yells. Then she contemplates it for a minute. ‘Actual truths?’

‘Actual truths.’

‘I faked it. The first time we slept together.’

I’m obviously horrified, but pretend not to be. I think back to our first time, in my single bed in Oxford, tangled in the duvet, her nipples pink and perfect against the white sheets, revelling at the idea that I was allowed to touch any part of her body that I wanted. No wonder I fumbled it. I consider telling her that that time was actually my first time. But it’s still too embarrassing. I think I’d rather she thought I was selfish than that she knew I’d misled her to think that I’d slept with my childhood girlfriend before her.

‘Thank you for telling me,’ I say, trying to sound like a man rather than a teenage boy. ‘Have you faked it since?’

She shakes her head. ‘Are you annoyed?’

‘Not at all. Just determined to make sure that every orgasm you have for the rest of our lives makes up for it.’

She pulls her legs up underneath her, already so golden. ‘I like this,’ she says. ‘Let’s keep it this way. Honest.’

‘I agree. One hundred per cent honesty, one hundred per cent of the time.’

She offers up her hand, like the end of Thelma and Louise, and I grasp it.

‘Deal?’ I ask.

‘Deal.’